Irish Flames

John Waller

Description

Before co-founder of the American School in London Peter Waller died he gave a partial manuscript to the author, his half-brother. His story is based on his memories of his childhood and the 1920 arrival of the Black and Tans. It is set in heart-wrenching times, intertwining flames of freedom, flames of hate and flames of love.

Informations

• Publié par: Yiannis Books
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783013104
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Irish Flames
Peter Waller s true story of the arrival of the Black and Tans
John Waller
YIANNIS BOOKS
Acknowledgements
Without my half-brother Peter Waller, this book would never have been written. I thank him not only for the words but also for the depth of feeling with which he describes the fight for freedom of the Irish people. It is a lesson worth remembering today.
IRISH FLAMES Copyright 2006 John Waller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher except for quotations of brief passages in reviews.
Published in 2006 by YIANNIS BOOKS 101 Strawberry Vale, Twickenham, TW1 4SJ UK Tel. [phone]
First published in UK March 2006 Reprinted in UK June 2006
Typeset by Mike Cooper, 25 Orchard Rd, Sutton SM1 2QA Printed by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
www.yiannisbooks.com True stories of history, drama and romance
208pp ISBN 0-9547887-2-9 ISBN 9781-7830131-0-4(eBook)
Irish Flames
Acknowledgements
Historical Background
Dedication
Author s Note
The way is blocked
To an uneasy Dublin
Homecoming
Barracks ablaze
A casualty is found
A nightmare recalled
A secret mission
The news spreads
A flame of a different hue
Almost the end of an era
To ruminate is dangerous
Unwelcome guests
Ambush
Explanations
Craving romance
Danger knocks
Sanctuary is sought
An engaging smile
The doctor to the rescue
Early morning escape
A blown bridge bypassed
Hospital is reached
The Mistress is missing
The Black and Tans have visited
Return to face the music
Danger unites
A scent of danger
A glorious day
The trap closes
Revenge
Flames of hate
Epilogue
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In 1914, the British Parliament passed, but did not implement, the Irish Home Rule Bill, which devolved power from Westminster to Dublin and Belfast. By then, 24,000 rifles had already had been landed in Ulster. In response, the long-distance yachtsmen Erskine Childers, ex-House of Commons clerk and author of Riddle of the Sands , and Anglo-Irishman Conor O Brien ran guns into the South. Then came the First World War during which 49,000 Irishmen gave their lives to fight for the freedom, from German occupation, of another small country like their own - Belgium.
In 1917, American President Woodrow Wilson declared that every nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life and determine its own institutions should be assured of justice and fair dealing by other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression .
In the General Election of 1918 Sinn F in, the party which demanded freedom from British rule, won 73 out of the 105 seats in all Ireland.
In 1919, the world s politicians gathered at the Peace Conference in Paris to decide the fate of the myriad of small nations. Erskine Childers was there in the Irish delegation but the British blocked the Irish wish to have their case discussed. President Wilson s vision of self-determination had been pushed aside.
By 1920, the strength of the British Army in Ireland had reached nearly 80,000. To these were added 7,000 irregulars, the Black and Tans, to bolster the Royal Irish Constabulary whose officers were resigning in droves.
Shoot and shoot with effect
In June 1920, Colonel Smyth, Divisional Police Commissioner for Munster, addressed the police at Listowel, County Kerry:
Should the order ( Hands Up ) not be immediately obeyed, shoot and shoot with effect. If the persons approaching [a patrol] carry their hands in their pockets, or are in any way suspicious-looking, shoot them down. You may make mistakes occasionally and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped, and you are bound to get the right parties some time. The more you shoot, the better I will like you, and I assure you no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man.
He then asked the first constable, Are you prepared to cooperate?
The man curtly referred him to the spokesman whom the members of the Listowel force had chosen, who replied:
By your accent I take it you are an Englishman and in your ignorance forget that you are addressing Irishmen. The constable then took off his cap, belt and sword (bayonet) and laid them on the table saying:
These, too, are English. Take them as a present from me and to hell with you - you are a murderer.
From THE IRISH REPUBLIC by Dorothy MacArdle
To Peter
Now rest in peace
Your story has been published
Thank you for so many happy times
Author s Note
My father was an Irishman; so why am I English?
On Saturday June 14 1930, he stayed with his friend, Conor O Brien, in Foynes, Co. Limerick. Next morning he set sail, along the circumnavigation route taken seven years before by Conor in his yacht Saoirse (Freedom), in his own epic single-handed cruise to the Canary Islands in his 26ft yawl. Returning home on the Yeoward Line s/s Aguila, he fell in love - with my mother.
Back in Ireland he had a problem: he was already married with a son, Peter.
Recently I decided it was time to re-discover my roots. I went back with a sense of guilt. In the 1920s he won a medal in the Tailteann Games, the Irish Reconciliation Olympics , had been almost unbeatable as a yachtsman on Lough Derg and had been a scratch golfer at Birr and Portmarnock - he was a real Irish sportsman. But his English wife had been so different - she loved her books and her garden.
I then found a family secret . I no longer felt guilty. Details were impossible to come by until I searched through the shopping bags of family papers, letters and photos my brother Peter had given to me before his death in 1990. I found he had written his childhood story. It told of the War of Independence, the arrival of the Black and Tans and details of the secret .
During my research, I have traced the people and places in the story. In respect for the past and the sensitivity of the present, I have changed their names.
JOHN WALLER November 2005
The way is blocked
Alec Casemond, built like a bull, short and square, now in his mid-thirties and matured from four years in the War, drove carefully. He had already crossed, with difficulty, a damaged bridge. One side wall, blown away by a mine, revealed below in a swirling river, an almost submerged army lorry. There remained of the bridge barely enough for a donkey cart to pass over. Slowly and in silence he manoeuvred the car across what seemed an interminable distance. His wife Meli had been free to walk, but eight-year-old Robin, lying helplessly on the back seat, with a broken leg, could but trust in him. Alec s relief in successfully negotiating this gruesome reminder of his country s plight gave him new energy and courage.
In that early summer of 1920 the political storm clouds had gathered around Ireland. The dream of Independence, for which the blood of seven centuries had so often flowed, appeared as elusive and remote as ever. Promises, half promises and innuendoes evaporated, leaving first disillusionment, then bitterness and now open and active hostility.
During the spring of 1920 a crowning insult had been inflicted upon a harassed and poverty-stricken Ireland, when English jails provided soldiers considered suitable to deal with the Irish question. These misfits of society were of a low mentality and largely unemployable and dangerous. What an ironic solution it was to give them a free hand in Ireland, thus relieving the pressure on the overburdened British prisons.
Training was unnecessary, since discipline was neither expected nor required. Not even the tradition of a conventional uniform was important. In their thousands they came, a motley crew of murderers, the Black and Tans , some wearing black trousers and tan jackets, others khaki trousers and black jackets. They looked, and indeed many proved to be, material for the hangman s noose.
As mile followed mile, Alec thought of former years. At the same age as Robin, his father had drowned in a tragic accident on the Shannon. He had died with his eldest daughter in his arms as he tried to release her from the rigging of the overturned boat. Alec s grandfather, a giant of a man and bare-fist boxing champion of the county, had then told him that, as soon as he was a man, he would take over the family firm.
After prep-school in Dublin, Alec had gone to the United Services College in Westwood Ho!, Devon, where he had learnt to box and where his passion for sport had taken him on to the dunes of the golf links and out to sea in a dinghy. Now he wanted to bring his son up in the same way. It was a result of this drive that had caused Robin to break his leg at the Raheen Regatta.
This year the Regatta had somehow gone wrong all round. Robbie had been taken under the wing of young Martin McCarthy who, though still in his twenties, was headman at Ardmore Castle and was working during the Regatta on the Kernahans yacht. But then Alec had driven Robin too hard so he had fallen. Meli too had not enjoyed the Regatta. She made little attempt to get on with Alec s friends, and indeed seemed to make more of an effort to talk to Martin who had been so kind to Robbie. Now this journey seemed to be equally jinxed.
They motored on, the winding road meandering its way through sleepy farms and long stretches of bogland. Irish roads of those days were the sad heritage of long decades of indifference and poverty. Yet to come to Ireland were the tarred surfaces of more modern lands. Over this very land, he had on several occasions followed the hounds. Not many miles ahead stood a large military barracks, garrisoned in former times by friendly British troops. There, he and Meli, his young English wife, had danced to the strains of the waltz and the two-step, in the dawn of 1913.
Now the countryside stood still and heavy. Tall hedges sprouting with spring may-blossom frequently concealed desperate patriots bent on am